


Waking Up

by TinyBat



Series: Walk The Line [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, Multi, Post-S2 Finale, jemma and her two boyfriends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9386081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyBat/pseuds/TinyBat
Summary: 4,722 hours after Jemma Simmons is pulled through the Monolith and onto Maveth, she’s returned to Earth, with Will Daniels badly damaged but alongside her, and she finds that rescued they’ve been, but they aren’t safe.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> I'm irrepressible.

Jemma wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep when the knock came, and the door opened. She was so stiff, every muscle burned, and her bones cracked as she rolled over and looked from Will’s bedside to the door. 

“Hello?” A female voice asked, her face obscured in the sliver of curtain around the doorway.

Jemma willed herself to get up, and she frantically searched the room for something, anything she could use to defend herself when she heard the curtain draw back, and a small sigh.

“I don’t think it’s in your best interest to move around like that, not in your condition.” The voice was placid, but tinged with concern, and Jemma was relieved to discover that the intruder was at least on her right.

She shifted her weight slowly and prepared to throw herself at the other woman if she had to. Will had to stay safe and they needed to be together.

“Dr. Simmons please, calm down. Mr. Daniels is still in a medical coma. Do you remember giving consent to him being treated?”

“What? Who are you?” Jemma sputtered, a soft hand on her shoulder before she could process a plan of attack.

The woman turned her around, and Jemma looked into a pale, heart shaped face with large brown eyes and a haircut that could only be described as efficient. She was smiling gently, but something faint in her expression was flat, and glazed. 

“My name is Anissa Holden, I’m the assistant to the head of the Eurydice Initiative. I’ve been told to make sure you showered, and changed.” “Eurydice Initiative? What? Is this Earth?“Jemma demanded in rapid succession, like she was firing her thoughts through a gun. 

Jemma was eased into a standing position she hoped looked casual and glared at her as she waited for answers.

“Yes, as you’ve probably deduced; you are back on Earth, and safe. Your companion, Will Daniels was brought back through the portal with you, his condition was so severe that the only way to treat him was to sedate him and work with all possible resources to keep him alive. As for the Eurydice Initiative, Dr. Simmons; it’s the organisation responsible for bringing you home.” Anissa Holden spoke clearly, but with the little inflections practiced by someone who was told she might have had a monotone.

She had leaned against the side of the chart tower to assess Jemma herself, but she didn’t look up to much. Jemma shivered, it was like looking at a freshly molded doll, something about her was ever so slightly off.

"I-“Jemma began, still trying to get out all of the questions and keep the woman distracted. She didn’t get far.

"Dr. Simmons, please. The Director has expressed a desire for you to be given fresh clothing and a shower. I’ve brought shampoo in lilac, sea salt lime body wash, a blue 4-bladed ergonomic razor, and the largest cotton towel available. I believe the Director may have leant it from his personal collection.”

Jemma looked to the products, and burst out laughing.

It was everything she could have possibly wished for, on her best day. There was no way she had survived the encounter with that thing. She was dying, and her brain was slowly showing her everything she wanted to see as she went. 

She picked up the shampoo bottle and inhaled deeply, a wave of deep calm coming over her and a memory dusting itself off in her head of a stop over trip to a pharmacy in Versailles after one of her early missions. 

“If you like, I can arrange them for you. ” Holden was still disturbingly placid, as though Jemma’s agitation was a slightly chilly breeze. 

“I won’t go anywhere or do anything unless I have the guarantee of Will’s life going unharmed in my absence.” Jemma said stonily, wondering why death seemed to take such a long time to come for her.

“Yes, The Director says you have a personal guarantee.” Holden said simply, walking to a panel in the wall that opened into a small bathroom, and setting everything on the counter.

Jemma waited for her the return to the door before asking why she should take this mysterious benefactor’s personal guarantees to heart.

“Should that matter? If the purpose of your organization was to bring us home, you’d know I wouldn’t trust any of you.” Jemma continued, irritation flaring now at both the woman, and her own body betraying her.

“It does, as proof, the Director has given me a message for you to read.” With that, a hand was extended and Jemma noticed a small scrap of paper on top of the paper chart monitoring Will’s heart rate.

It was simple, and more than anything else, it made certainty wash through Jemma in an exhausting wave; she was alive.

The note read simply:

_I told you I’d catch you._

Jemma saw it and knew she was alive because not one thing had gone her way since she’d met Grant Ward, and dying should have given her a break.


	2. Waking Up Pt. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma is given no insight at all, and hones her annoyance.

“Your director is Grant Ward?” Jemma said hoarsely, dropping the scrap of paper down on the table, and swallowing hard against the immediate impulse to lash out. 

It was so hard, and she was so tired but Will was home, they were home, and apparently Ward had orchestrated it. If there was a Hell designed for Jemma, it couldn’t have been more elegantly constructed, and again she wondered briefly if she truly wasn’t slowly suffocating in a cloud of sand.

“Yes. Though I _do_ believe he wishes to talk to you about it himself, and at your leisure.” Miss. Holden said simply, as though she hadn’t just ripped open a hole in Jemma’s life and set the wound on fire.

“At my leisure?” Jemma spat, standing tall again, and not entirely sure killing this woman and taking Will’s body wouldn’t be doable. At her leisure, her ass, Jemma exhaled despite all of this and again tried to center herself in the situation.

“The Director said that you’d be disoriented after your sedative wore off, and would want a shower. After that, he said that you’d want details, and I am here to provide them.” 

Jemma took in the room again, immediately finding a keypad by the door, and a retinal scanner. This was a room designed for internal security, as much a place to hide away as to access. 

“Will that keypad accept a code I set? If this is real, and I’m slowly beginning to suspect that it is, I want you gone while I shower, and I will let you know when you can come back in.” Jemma said levelly, brooking no debate she hoped. This woman was eerie but she did seem reasonable even if her immediate superior was the absolute worst. 

Jemma was putting a lot of trust in the o doubt patient admin staring back at her and shakily eased away from Will’s sleeping body toward the center of the room, but always between Will and this odd woman.

Miss. Holden stared at Jemma with a placid expression, and dark glassy eyes, a hand gesturing toward the open door to the bathroom she’d just put Jemma’s things in.

“I respect that, and yes. You’ll be pleased to know as well that this room is only accessible by myself at the moment. Your privacy is being absolutely respected; as The Director knows you aren’t at your best after waking up, and would want to see to Mr. Daniels’ safety after your assent to our care for him.”

She was right, and that meant Ward was right and it was not easing any of the new hostility Jemma was beginning to nurture. Will was new, and kind, sweet, and honest, Ward would poison him, and she had no way of knowing he hadn’t while she herself had been unconscious.

“Does his paperwork include a complete panel of his blood work, and everything he has been given since I consented? We may be here but Ward is Ward, and Will is nobody to him. What’s he done?” Jemma asked, folding her arms for the comfort it gave her and still further delaying a shower, and whatever minimal comfort it could give. 

“The Director hasn’t done anything, there’s footage to prove it. Please, Dr. Simmons, clean yourself up. It will make any further discussion much easier. If you need assurances as to the safety of the shower, I’ll happily go first.” Miss Holden said with almost the hint of a wry smile, pupils dilated to a level Jemma associated with heavy drug use. 

She didn’t want to know what Ward did to his assistant just yet, but when she found out, she could undo it.

“I can manage for myself; thank you. If you could see yourself out, I’ll knock five times on the door when you’re permitted back in. I don’t suppose I’ll have your word that you’ll be alone out there?” Jemma bartered, trying to ensure every possible angle was covered.

“As someone who owes much to science, Dr. Simmons, I would be honored to give you my word.” She said, and turned swiftly to leave without a hint of argument.

Jemma almost threw the clipboard she’d left at the woman as the door locked and the codes began to shift. It was too much, but after a shower, she could look Will over; and hope Anissa Holden was as good as her word. Setting the security code to the digits of pi four away from the highest she could remember, she stood up and hoped she hadn’t ever recited it front of Ward either for fun, or profit.

“Time to make a start…” Jemma groaned, and recalled the things Ward somehow remembered that she loved into the bathroom, willing to hate him again after she was clean.


End file.
